The invention relates to a pet groomer and a vacuum cleaner includes the pet groomer.
Generally, pet owners use brushes to comb their pet. The loose hair that combed from pets are comparatively thin and broken, easily flying with the wind, and can contain allergens or various bacteria and throw threats to or even destroy health of people, especially to children and sensitive people. Loose hair combed down by traditional brush can scatter in the air or on the ground or twined in comb teeth, user has to clear twined hair by hand from comb teeth. In the process, user is exposed to or even harmed by bacteria and/or allergen contained in pet hair. Besides, most comb teeth are relatively sharp and intensively arranged, so user may get hurt when clearing twined hair manually.
In order to solve the problems above, U.S. Pat. No. 6,681,775 (Wang) discloses a pet brush comprised of a front plate and a base plate, lots of holes corresponding to comb teeth are set in the front plate, with many comb teeth planted on base plate which extends outside of corresponding holes in the front plate, when it is necessary to comb a pet, user operate controlling key to extend comb teeth out, then the comb teeth withdraw from corresponding holes by operating the controlling key after pet hair combed, combed hair will be stripped off comb teeth by the front plate and then dumped into trash can. Since combed loose hair can scatter in all directions when falling into trash can from comb teeth, allergens and/or bacteria may spread to pollute environment, and besides, user has to operate the controlling key in every combing process to strip off hair in comb teeth and holding the pet brush, put it into the trash can. It is inconvenience and labor waste.
Based on the above, CN201010189748.2 discloses a vacuum cleaner attachment. The attachment can be connected with vacuum cleaning equipment through a pipe, the external wall of the pipe serves as an operating handle, the overlying front plate and base plate are at the other end of the pipe, many bristle-type comb teeth are planted in the base plate, the front plate has many holes and an air inlet connected with the main suction channel of vacuum cleaner, and comb teeth in the base plate extend or withdraw through holes in the front plate. A controlling key with a spring is set near the pipe handle, user operate the controlling key to move towards the pipe handle direction, to drive comb teeth to extend outwards through the holes on front plate and enter the combing status. After pet hair transferred to comb teeth, user relaxes finger to let comb teeth withdraw, meanwhile the airflow speed at the air inlet suction hole becomes higher to vacuum loose hair after it is stripped off comb teeth by the front plate. Since loose hair firstly stripped from comb teeth can fall down freely due to insufficient suction force of the main suction channel, and as the air intake direction is vertical to the front plate scattered with stripped hair, the pet hair which is at the rim of the front plate can't be completely vacuumed away easily. Furthermore, in order to avoid excessive suction force which affects comfort of pet, the suction force at the air intake hole cannot be too strong. In practice, hair stripped off from rim comb teeth can stuck on front plate after comb teeth withdrawn, user must extend and withdraw comb teeth repeatedly to move residual hair into suction hole completely, sometimes still have to use fingers to help in the final. This can obviously increase the chance of hair and allergen spreading to cause secondary pollution. Therefore, the risk that furs and allergens spread to cause secondary pollution can be increased. If there have fleas hide inside the hair combed down, they may be exposed in air on the front plate in the end of each incomplete stripping/vacuuming cycle and get chance to jump around. Many stripping and vacuuming cycles needed to comb a pet, incomplete vacuuming can multiply the chance of flea spreading. Moreover, the controlling key of the tool should be pressed to extend comb teeth outwards, and user should press the controlling key constantly during the combing process, it can be tiring for use. As the length of comb teeth is fixed, it is uneasy to control the length of comb teeth extended outside of the front plate to fit different pet hair length. Shorter extended teeth can not comb deep enough for pets with thick hair, and longer extended teeth can hurt pets with thin hair. In order to maximize effective suction at the air inlet hole in the front plate, the tool welds different components together which makes it very difficult for consumer to replace comb teeth. If one or more comb teeth damaged, consumer will have to buy a new product. Besides, it is unavoidable that some pet hair drop in the gap of welded parts in use, it is hard for user to clean.